Spook-a-boo
by antomec
Summary: "It's 3 am and I'm still in the library studying for finals and I'm losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost" AU. Colu, oneshot, rated T for swearing. Collab fic with @cheschire-kaat on Tumblr.


_**An actual collab fic! With cheschire-kaat on Tumblr! Check out her artblog kaats-eye! It's amazing! And her writing blog kaatastroph-e!**_ _ **so many exclamation points**_

 _ **But honestly, we had so much fun writing this. Especially the brainstorming part. We got mixed up so many times, it's not even funny. We hope you like this!**_

Late Sunday nights (or early Monday mornings) were not meant to be spent at the library, no matter how much Lucy loved being in them.

It was nearing 3 am, and Lucy could not find it within herself to give a fuck. She'd been up since 7 and in the library since 10, trying to cram a whole semester's worth of notes inside her tiny brain in roughly eighteen hours.

 _Someone kill her, please._

If it weren't for Natsu and his stupid ass, she wouldn't have lost precious sleep like this. She could have been sound asleep in her very comfy bed, thank you very much.

But no, Natsu just had to get himself arrested.

And of course, he just had to appeal to her conscience to pick him up from the station, which also happened to be in another fucking district. So now Lucy was cursing every deity she had ever prayed to in the hopes that one of them would inevitably take offense and would just destroy her.

Lucy swears colourfully under her breath as she remembers the pale-faced boy – or was that just his makeup? – Natsu had apparently fought with just after he had also set fire to a fucking _curtain_.

" _But Lucy, it was an accident!"_

" _I'm about ten seconds away from making your_ death _look like an accident."_

It had been a very wild night for the both of them, Lucy figures – Natsu with his fight, and Lucy miserably failing to memorize her notes on the car ride over. Bailing out her pink-haired friend ended up being a lot more complicated than she anticipated – then again, with her luck, it wasn't surprising – but she had finally, _finally_ achieved to leave the police station with a whining and hungry Natsu after, what, three hours? Or was it four?

With the way the shadows in the corners of the room and by the bookshelves seemed to grow larger with every passing second, Lucy concludes that she should probably take a break from the hot-tempered fool she had grown to consider her best friend over the years. After all, he was nothing but a magnet for trouble, and the extra stress was honestly the last thing she needed in her life.

When she finally notices how she's been reading the same paragraph for the fifth time, she groans out loud in exhaustion and stretches her back, accidentally knocking her pencil case off the table, which falls on the floor with a dull thud.

The sound takes Lucy by surprise, causing her to jump. "I-is someone there?" Logically thinking, she was supposed to be the only one here, but that thought was shot to hell when she started hearing things.

Her hackles rise when she hears scratching. It sounds like someone dragging their nails down a chalkboard.

And when she sees a shadow out of place on the floor, the fear is back in full force.

Because the shadow has fucking horns.

All the horror movies Natsu had put her through goes hurtling through her mind, replaying each gruesome scene with frightening clarity. This is it, this was how she was going to die – she could already see the headlines: _SMASHING, HOT COLLEGE KID MYSTERIOUSLY MURDERED IN SCHOOL LIBRARY_

But fuck if she was going down without a fight.

(Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realises that it's probably nothing, and that she was making a mountain out of a molehill, but Lucy refuses to acknowledge that little part.)

Lucy takes in a single deep breath, recollects everything that Natsu had ever taught her in case of a serial killer, and lets loose a scream that he would've been proud of and bolts like Naruto toward the exit, zigzagging between the shelves.

It would have worked had she not crashed headfirst into something very solid.

The impact would have made her fall on her ass, but a pair of strong arms catches her just in time. "Oi, what the fuck?" asks a bodiless, gravelly voice, and Lucy's instincts kick into overdrive. After all, the one thing that Lucy's learned over the years with Natsu, it's that questions come after punches. And with that, Lucy blindly punches as hard as she can.

The stranger doubles down gasping as her fist makes contact with his solar plexus, the air whooshing out of him. He drops her abruptly, and Lucy falls on her ass.

She sits frozen in fear, as she finally takes in her assailant. She stares at a guy her age breathlessly clutching his chest, pain clearly depicted on his roguish features.

"Yo," he breathes out, "what is your _problem_?"

She wants to answer, she really does. But she keeps staring at him, speechless, analysing him from head to toe.

Unfortunately for Lucy, she might've just punched the most gorgeous guy she's ever seen.

Her eyes take in his unruly burgundy hair and dark skin as they wander from his calloused hands to his slightly pointed ears, pausing on his lips for a very brief second before being inevitably attracted to the very prominent scar that runs across his face. Whatever happened to him hadn't seemed to spare his right eye, which looks as though it's permanently sewn shut.

"You done looking at me, Blondie?" he asks in an annoyed tone.

"How do I know you're not a figment of my imagination?" She snaps back. Of all the stupid things Lucy has ever said, she feels like this one takes the cake.

The boy doesn't answer, just stares at her in silence, and she can tell from his expression that he was quite clearly judging her. Though the gods had blessed him with incredible attractive looks, Lucy notes, it certainly wasn't the case for his attitude.

"What?" Lucy asks, affronted. "You could very well be something that my too-exhausted brain cooked up in order to make me go home. It does that sometimes, " she adds hastily.

The boy mumbles something under his breath. "Yes, Spirit-boy?" Lucy asks again.

"Spirit-boy?" he groans. "I ain't dead, thank you very much. Now, what the fuck did you punch me for?"

Her cheeks flush at being reminded of what she did to him. Dear Mavis, was she embarrassed. "Well", she begins, breathing deeply, "I'm in the library because I have to study for my finals 'cause my idiot friend decided to start a fucking fight and also set fire to a curtain which also got the cops involved, and which also ultimately forced me to bail him out from another fucking district. Also it's extremely late and maybe I'm losing my grip on reality because I think I just saw a ghost. Or a demon. Yep, probably a demon."

He doesn't speak for a minute, and when he does, his tone is slightly amused. "For fuck's sake", he says, "it's too late for this shit." Spirit-boy – she would call him as such until she learned his real name – proceeds to take her hand in his and, ignoring her cries of protest, drags her to that cursed, haunted spot of the library.

Her protests die soon when she realises that if she does somehow get murdered by something supernatural, she could skip her finals.

"Oh," Lucy says, giggling, "I could haunt Natsu from beyond the grave."

Spirit-boy looks at her in worry. "Did you hit your head somewhere? Maybe you have a concussion. It would explain all this."

Lucy giggles again. "No, but I might've busted a vein yelling at my friend."

Spirit-boy stops them and looks at her as though she'd reminded him of something. "Speaking of your friend," he starts, "would he be named Natsu Dragneel by any chance?"

Lucy blinks in astonishment. Once. Twice. "...Yes?" _How the fuck does he know?_

As if he had heard her silent question, he shrugs. "I figured as much. You see, I too had an idiot to bail out. In another district."

Lucy gasps. _Could it have been...make-up boy?_

"Yeah, he gets that a lot. I always tell him to lay off the makeup, but he never listens."

She looks at Spirit-boy in awe. _Is he fucking psychic or something?_

The look on her face must have been priceless, because Spirit-boy starts cackling and pulls them along.

"So. What exactly happened?" he asks, and she shivers at the memory.

"I was sitting over there, studying. And suddenly, I heard a loud sound, as if someone threw..." she trails off as she sees him bend – _what a nice butt_ – and pick up something from the floor. She glances down to see her school material strewn across the ground. She must have knocked her bag over when she ran for her life.

Spirit-boy straightens and holds out her pencil case, and suddenly Lucy wants to sink into the earth and be done with her life.

He's smirking. She's embarrassed. But Lucy quickly gets ahold of herself once again. "Okay, okay, all right. But I also saw a shadow! With horns! And something scratching by the windows! It was terrifying, I'm telling you!"

"Are you sure?" He was skeptical, and Lucy couldn't fault him for it.

"Not completely, no. But I was in shock!" She adds at his expression.

"Alright, alright, now where'd you see the freaky shadow?"

"Over by that bookshelf," Lucy says, pointing. Spirit-boy starts his inspection methodically, and Lucy suddenly wonders why he too is at the library.

She asks him, and he answers with his head under her table. "Same as you. Had to bail out my friend while also simultaneously study for my finals." He grunts and clambers up on the table. "Man, finals can go fuck themselves."

Lucy nods in agreement.

Spirit-boy looks above the bookshelf, extending his arms as if he's grabbing something…which he is, because he jumps down from the table with a cat in his arms.

He drops the animal ungracefully on the table, the feline crying in protest. "There you go, blondie. Here's ya' malevolent ghost."

Mortified. That's how she feels. She stutters something between a defense and an apology, cheeks turning redder and redder by the second. The strange boy is laughing, and it's irritating but perhaps she deserves it.

Embarrassment still written all over her face, Lucy gingerly picks up the stray kitten. It purrs, and she laughs. "You might have scared me to death, but I gotta admit –you are one adorable little bastard."

She turns toward the boy. "I'm taking this furball home; perhaps it would do Natsu some good to learn how to take care of a cat." Lucy pauses for a second and adds, "Who knows, maybe he'll start being more responsible."

 _Like that could happen._

Lucy plasters a manic grin on her face and continues. "Now then, time for me to go home, crash into a mini-coma and fail tomorrow's final."

She picks up her bag and notebooks – unconsciously leaving her pencil case behind – and starts to walk away.

"Oi! Blondie!"

She turns around and sees Spirit-boy running toward her. "Yes, Spirit-boy?"

"Don't call me that," he snaps before taking ahold of her hand. Her heart skips a beat as he takes out a pen and from his pocket and – _oh my god_ – starts writing random numbers.

"Name's Erik." he claims, letting her hand drop. "Call me. And good luck."

And just like that, he's gone. Leaving her with a stray kitten, a pounding heart and his number scribbled on her hand.

What a night.

Back in the school's library, empty once again, Lucy's pencil case still lies on the table, its contents spread on the floor. That is, until the pencils, pens and erasers start, one by one, to float and fly back into the case.

 _ **As always, reviews are appreciated af.**_


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